Buck Harvey: Blending eyes in sky with Popovich

Up in the rafters of the AT&T Center, whirring nonstop, were six cameras, three per half-court. They took pictures of the Suns and Spurs.

They took a lot of them. SportVU is an optical tracking system that creates a digital footprint of a game. Originally designed by an Israeli scientist for military use, SportVU records every on-court movement in three dimensions.

And as data was being collected — as the Spurs tried to keep up with the high-tech world — none of it likely impressed the coach.

Gregg Popovich knew better than ever on this night.

Analytics had nothing to do with losing to the worst team in the Western Conference.

The Spurs as a franchise are committed to searching for statistical clues. And when the analytics staff returns to the computers after losing to Phoenix, they will tell themselves what they already know. One game isn’t much of a sample size.

They will continue what they do, and they will pay attention to the annual event that begins Friday in Boston. The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference talks about what is already possible, and what might be later.

There are 30 panel discussions, and R.C. Buford will be featured on one of them. Those in attendance will be lucky to hear much. Buford and the Spurs try to protect their intellectual property.

Still, a few things are undeniable, and one is SportVU. The Spurs were one of the first NBA franchises to begin using the equipment two seasons ago, and they have been joined by about half the league, including the Suns.

SportVU fits into this NBA era of Moneyball. Analytics can be about a shot chart, or it can be about draft evaluation, or market value, or a projection of how much a player has left in his career.

“But it goes deeper,” said an analytics manager with another franchise, “than people think.”

About two-thirds of the teams employ an analytics department. Among the dinosaurs: The Lakers and the Bulls.

Popovich is closer to walking the earth as a Jurassic coach. He and metrics go together like merlot and bubble gum.

“What do you expect?” said someone who once worked for the Spurs. “He’s 65 (actually 64), and he’s won four titles, and he doesn’t have a computer on his desk.”

Popovich also doesn’t own a laptop or a tablet. He has an email address; his secretary mostly answers it.

Still, others who have worked with him say he’s more open to analytics than he lets on. He might not acknowledge the metrics, even as his assistant coaches feed him data, but he’s putting the information through his own filter.

Popovich knows it’s a fluid game with layers of variables. This isn’t baseball, where numbers are so easily assigned value.

Given that, he prefers to rely on what he sees and what he knows. His understanding of the details of the game rank with any coach, yet he mostly believes in aspects that numbers can’t measure, such as passion.

Wednesday was an example. Did the Spurs lose because of a faulty shot chart? Or because they were flat?

“They were physical, they played hard,” Popovich said afterward of the Suns.

“They were the more aggressive team, and they played smarter than we did.”

Specifically, smarter at the end of regulation. Then, Manu Ginobili missed the free throw that would have clinched the win, and the Suns threw the outlet pass about 60 feet to an open shooter.

“That cost us the game,” Popovich said, and there’s nothing in analytics that takes into account defenders who fall asleep.

SportVU caught it all. And while there is information in the data, what the six cameras saw was always going to be just part of the equation.